The competition, the main goal of which is to promote the ideas of energy efficient construction, has been held by the international concern Saint-Gobain all over the world since 2005. This year, for the first time, students of architectural universities of Russia also received the right to participate in it - in particular, Moscow Architectural Institute, NRU MGSU (MISI), TulSU, TSASU and NI ISTU.
According to the competition project, the young designers were to develop the concept of a "green" community, which is planned to be implemented as part of the Trent River Basin Rehabilitation Program (Nottingham, UK). At the same time, housing must meet the highest requirements for thermal protection, acoustics, fire safety and, of course, energy efficiency. It must be admitted that the latter condition is of a certain difficulty for Russian designers, because the problem of reducing energy consumption in our country has only recently begun to be paid attention to. For example, the maximum energy consumption for a "passive" house in Europe is 15 kW of total energy per square meter, while in Russia this figure ranges from 120 to 220 kW! Needless to say, the difference is huge. We, in fact, heat the street, but nobody gets warmer from this. Actually, the Saint-Gobain concern is holding this competition because it is one of the world's developers of technologies and structures (including external walls and windows) that can significantly reduce heat loss, and is interested in their active use.
Perhaps it was the complexity of the task that led to the fact that there were very few people willing to participate in the first Russian competition “Multicomfortable House Saint-Gobain”. In total, in the period from October 2011 to mid-March 2012, 8 works were submitted. Among them, the jury, which included Alexander Remizov, Chairman of the Council for Sustainable Architecture of the Union of Architects of Russia, Nina Umnyakova, Deputy Director of the Research Institute of Building Physics of the RAASN, General Director of A_PRIORI PROJECT LLC, architect Elena Shakhmina, Director of the Passive House Institute (Russia) Alexander Elokhov, Stanislav Shcheglov, Head of Energy Efficiency in Construction, and Valentin Shatskiy, representative of Saint-Gobain in Ukraine, identified the top three. The main criteria for evaluating projects were the architectural image of buildings, the comfort of their future residents, the use of energy efficient materials and technologies, as well as the use of sustainable development principles in planning the entire area.
The concept developed by Artem Akimov, Alexander Ivanov and Nursultan Ergaliev, students of MGSU, was recognized as the best Russian project for an energy efficient microdistrict. In this project, the jury especially liked the fact that the authors did not deprive the future residential complex of parking, but tactfully hid it, dividing the parking lots for permanent residents and the transport of visiting workers. It is also important that the new area in its architectural design corresponds to the style of the surrounding buildings, although the designers did not use brick, which is so typical for buildings of the Victorian era. “As fans of the architect Mayer, who said that white is the best color in the rainbow, we decided to use this color,” the authors admit.
The jury awarded the "Silver" to the MGSU students Ksenia Voronova and Ivan Anisimov, who invented buildings with an unusual multi-pitched roof, on which solar panels are installed. “In creating the architectural image, we proceeded primarily from the technical requirements for energy efficiency,” the authors say. In particular, they immediately decided that the most energy-efficient figure is a square, and the optimal angle of inclination of the roof, on which the solar panels are located, is 45 degrees. In addition, we had a rigid orientation to the cardinal points, and we knew exactly where the roof slope would be, and where the blank wall would be. We started from such technical details, while trying to build an interesting image."
And finally, the third place was awarded to the team from Tomsk. TSASU students Elena Yaroslavtseva, Tatyana Vyazova and Katerina Mayorova have developed a project of residential buildings that at first glance look like traditional Victorian buildings, but in fact are literally stuffed with solar panels and collectors.
Having received diplomas and monetary certificates, the winners of the national stage of the competition are now preparing for the international stage. The results of the latter will be announced on May 23 in Bratislava.
